This past November, I finally got the link to setup my account. I never got around to funding my wallet but am kinda relieved after waking-up to this email:

Buttercoin is closing

Farewell friends.

Buttercoin will be turning off our service on April 10th at 11PM Pacific.

Be sure to move your bitcoins to another service and remove your dollar balances by Friday April 10th at 11PM.

For reference…

Dollar balances not removed will be sent back to the accounts they came from.
Bitcoin balances in Buttercoin after April 10th will be converted to USD and sent to the bank linked to your account.
It’s been a wonderful ride and we’re delighted to have created a service so many people enjoy. With the dip in bitcoin interest among Silicon Valley investors, we weren’t able to generate enough venture capital interest to continue funding Buttercoin.

We started Buttercoin with the goal of creating secure and scalable bitcoin infrastructure the community could rely on. We committed to building a service with excellent Security, Technology, Liquidity and Compliance. We’re proud to have delivered on our goal and commitments.

We wish you all the best and will be around personally if you have questions or just want to talk bitcoin. You can reach us via [email protected] Our staff has always been humble, but are among the most talented in their fields and we’re excited to see them go on and be leaders in their industries.

– Team Buttercoin

Who knows what really happened and I really don’t care to start speculating. Just another startup that couldn’t make it happen.

Being an avid bootstrapper and finance guy, I’d be interested to see how they allocated all of their $1.3 million investment. They do however state they’re liquid, so hopefully everyone gets out safe and sound.

Startups are hard and aren’t for everyone. But to their credit the hype around Bitcoin did die down a good bit (along with the price). I’m sure the founders learned a lot of the experience and will probably bounce back stronger.